63% of young Latvians feel their mental health has deteriorated during pandemic

  • 2021-01-24
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - Nearly two thirds, or 63 percent of young Latvians feel that their mental health has deteriorated during the Covid-19 pandemic, shows a survey conducted by the Therapy Center for Adolescents and Young People at the end of last year. 

Most youngsters, or 70.4 percent, admitted having felt depressed in the past couple of weeks and 79.2 percent admitted learning difficulties. Meanwhile, 60 percent of the surveyed youngsters had had obsessive thoughts and had become irritable. 

While during the first Covid-19 wave young people described their mental health as generally good (38.1 percent) or acceptable (24.3 percent), during the second wave 31.6 percent described it as acceptable and 29.8 percent as bad. 

The number of young people feeling very good during the pandemic has dropped sharply - from 19.5 percent during the first wave to 7.6 percent. The share of young people who feel extremely bad has risen from 4.6 percent to 7.8 percent.

The therapy center's head Nils Konstantinovs says that the survey reveals a very pessimistic situation and that when dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic, the government will have to address not only economic issues but also the mental health of the country's young population. 

Konstantinovs believes that authorities should start planning already now how to help distressed youngsters stabilize and recover their mental health after the crisis.